meddlers
by ribbons-blue
Summary: In which Kol, Klaus, and Finn decide to interfere in Elijah's love life. Because what else are little brothers good for? [Elijah x Elena]
1. Chapter 1

_meddlers_

* * *

_In which Kol, Klaus, and Finn decide to interfere in Elijah's love life. Because what else are little brothers good for? _

* * *

**IMPORTANT NOTE:**

**This story is set slightly after the events of the episode "Dangerous Liaisons" (the famous Mikaelson party episode), with one small change: Esther and Finn haven't plotted the downfall of the entire Original family we all know and love. Therefore, none of the events/episodes after "Dangerous Liaisons have occurred—Esther didn't try to murder her children, Elijah didn't skip town, Finn's not dead, Elena's still human etc. etc. The possibilities of such a dynamic family reuniting and living together were endless, and I'm sorely disappointed that the Vampire Diaries writers didn't choose to explore that scenario more.**

* * *

It was a normal day in Mystic Falls.

Or, as normal as a day could truly be when in a town inhabited by a unique array of bloodthirsty vampires (both of the human and bunny-desiring variety), rabid werewolves, and witches who had the uncanny ability of setting things on fire with merely a single glance.

So…normal.

Unfortunately, there was one vampire who was not being afforded the privilege of enjoying what had earlier promised to be an ordinary, relaxed day, courtesy of one of the greatest annoyances known both to human and supernatural kind:

Little brothers.

Because, in an elegant mansion situated on the outskirts of the aforementioned little town, a particular Original was finding his serene perusal of his books interrupted by one such hindrance.

At first he had tried to stolidly ignore Kol's unrelenting whispers and exaggerated movements meant to ensnare his notice, burying himself deeper into the ancient scripts and scrolls he had discovered in Niklaus' keeping (his brother had disturbing magpie-like qualities of picking up whatever he fancied at the time and discarding it into an obscure corner just as easily). However, when an ornamental tea pot came flying at his head with harmful intent, Finn wisely decided to donate his attentions to his younger brother before the tea pot was followed by a rather heavy-looking encyclopedia Kol was eyeing speculatively.

Effortlessly catching the spinning projectile and replacing the tea pot back on a nearby table, he sent his sibling a wry look. "_What_, Kol?"

"Brother," Kol hissed, beckoning Finn over with a rapidly flapping hand in the universal 'come hither' signal. Finn rolled his eyes (which looked decidedly odd on a vampire of his sophistication and maturity_)_ but joined his younger sibling on the posh living room couch nonetheless, far too used to Kol's ridiculous antics to do much else.

Finn sighed, sinking gracefully beside his little brother and dryly asking him again, "What?"

"He's at it _again_," Kol huffed exasperatedly, his body nearly falling off the furniture as he stretched to get a better look out of the expansive window lining the eastern wall. "_Look_."

And, complying with Kol's request and following his insistently pointing finger, Finn looked.

Promptly after doing so, he was highly tempted to roll his eyes yet again (he usually refrained from doing so, as Rebekah had complained more than once of how frighteningly demonic it made him look, given the large size of his eyes). "Kol," he grumbled in disinterest. "It is only Elijah."

"But he's doing it _again_!"

"So our brother enjoys taking walks," he said gruffly. "Not all of us indulge in annoyance as our pastimes. Cease acting like such a simpleton." He reached one large hand up and yanked his brother down with ease, watching dispassionately as Kol allowed himself to tumble dramatically from his perch on the couch to sprawl on the floor.

"Walks," Kol repeated in disbelief, shaking his head despairingly at Finn. "Brother, you were in that coffin for _far_ too long," he said pityingly. "Don't you know when someone's mooning over a girl?"

Finn adopted a stony face, lips compressing into a thin line. "Elijah does not _moon_," he replied in disgust, making Kol snicker lowly at his older brother's automatic defense of Elijah. While it wasn't difficult to call Elijah the favorite of each of the siblings (Kol would never stoop to admitting it, but that included him as well), Finn had always hero worshipped their eldest brother, clinging to him as a child and trying his best to copy his mannerisms as an adult.

It was cute, really.

But even cuteness had its limit.

"Finn, Finn, Finn," the Original vampire on the floor droned out teasingly, in that gratingly maddening voice that usually had Rebekah leaping on him in under a minute, trying to whack him around the head with whatever object happened to be nearest (normally some exquisite sixteenth century Chinese vase that Klaus seemed to have a disturbing number of lying about—again, those magpie tendencies of his…). "Our dear big brother goes out nearly twice a day, every day, to walk around aimlessly in these stupid forests, and when he's not doing _that_ he just _stands_ at the window, staring out of it with a forlorn expression. What else would you call it, if not…" He paused, a wide grin spreading across his face. "Lovesick?"

Finn was silent, his handsome visage serious…but that really wasn't much of a change. Finn was always so serious and sober.

"Seeeeee," Kol drawled, attempting to draw out a response from his stoic brother. "I'm right, aren't I?"

Silence.

"Go on, say it. I'm always right. Always."

Silence.

"Of course I'm always right. I'm Kol the Magnificent, Kol the Mystic, Kol the Unbearably Handsome—"

Silence.

"Finn, did you die? Like, really, really die? Given that you really only have one facial expression, it'd be sort of difficult to tell if you ever truly kicked it, to be honest with you brother." Kol yawned as he once again received no reply. "You should probably work on that."

"…"

"I wonder who she is?" Kol mused to himself out loud, idly twisting his silky brown locks of hair through nimble fingers as he unconsciously preened (if Klaus was a magpie, Finn thought, then Kol was certainly the narcissist of the family). "Maybe we've met her? Hm. Probably blonde. Maybe redhead? Finn, what type of girls _does_ Elijah fancy anyways? Can't say I've ever seen him care for anyone other than Tatia. Then again, we've been dead for a while now, missed out on quite a lot probably. So…brunette? Maybe. Most likely tall, striking. Well endowed? Brother certainly doesn't _seem_ like he'd favor that, but you never know, do you Finn? …Finn? What'd you think, huh? Could use a little input here—"

"Kol."

The word was barely more than a whisper, but it was a whisper full of spidery cracks threatening to break and unleash a torrent of violent emotion.

It must be mentioned that Finn, unfortunately, had been in a coffin for over nine hundred years.

And after nine hundred years, you tended to forget a few things.

Namely, you tended to forget certain details about people. Such as Rebekah's infernal need to be eternally right, Elijah's overprotective tendencies, Klaus's manic mood swings…

Finn stared hard at the deceptively innocent looking young man grinning up at him from the floor.

…and Kol's obnoxious habit of rambling to himself when he was bored.

That was yet another trait that usually had Rebekah leaping on him, snatching up the nearest object to whack him over the head with. Finn had to make a note to place one of Klaus's conveniently heavy artifacts within her immediate reach the next time she decided to do so. It was such a pity, he thought dispassionately, that his family had so hastily burned down the only tree in existence that could possibly do them any sort of harm.

"What is it, brother?" Kol replied guilelessly, withdrawing Finn from his morbidly-pleasing thoughts of how to find a more lasting solution to Kol's unceasing blathering.

"Your idle prattle is impeding my ability to think," Finn told him.

Kol's brow wrinkled. "Huh?"

Finn sighed. "You're being annoying," he clarified to the particularly obtuse one in the room. On occasion Finn had to wonder what among Rebekah's general smarminess, Klaus's sharp-tongued retorts, or Kol's single-minded thick-headedness had thus far proven to be responsible for the greatest numbers of headaches.

Elijah, of course, was his elder brother and utterly perfect in every aspect, and therefore above Finn's scrutiny as an object of aggravation.

A loud huff came from Kol, his mouth tilting downwards in an indignant frown. "Fine, fine. Be that way then, brother." Curling up petulantly on his side, hiding the now-vindictive smile that had appeared on his face, he muttered, "I really should have known better though, asking for romantic advice from a _virgin_."

Kol sneaked a daring peek at his frozen brother, repressing a slight snicker as he noted the twitchy look he wore. Unwisely, perhaps, he decided to push just a _little_ more in revenge for the 'annoying' comment. "After all, Finn," he began coyly, "You and Sage never went all the way did you? Your _honor_ prevented you from doing so unless you were married." He paused delicately at the last word, nose screwing up in disgust. "It's really no wonder she left, eh?"

There was a heartbeat's moment of silence.

And then Kol found himself abruptly winded from the sizable bulk of his brother pinning him down, a deep scowl marring Finn's features.

_Aha_, Kol thought gleefully to himself. _Success. _

Normally that wasn't what one thought when being assaulted by one's irate older sibling, but Kol had never fit in with the traditional description of 'normal', as his family could earnestly attest. And managing to elicit a rise from the brother that was by far the most difficult to tease was most certainly a victory by Kol's standards.

Kol fought back half-heartedly, wrestling with his older brother. It wasn't much of a fight, as Kol was laughing much too hard to be any sort of a challenge. Just when Finn had managed to restrain Kol's wriggling form and trap his arm behind his back, preparing to introduce his face to the uncarpeted floor, an aggravated voice rang out.

"Could you two _kindly_ refrain from destroying my house?"

Kol and Finn simultaneously looked up from their entanglement on the floor as Klaus heatedly stomped into the room and threw himself onto the lavish couch in his usual dramatic fashion, his fingers locked tightly upon his drawing pad and a barely repressed snarl concealed on his face.

A smirk crept across Kol's boyish visage as he regarded his fresh teasing bait; for if there was one person easier, nay, more _amusing_ to rile, it was Nik. Sensing his little brother's intentions (and being loathe to interfere in any sort of sibling torture that involved Niklaus—_nine hundred years in a coffin that bastard—) _Finn swiftly released his arm without a word of warning, allowing Kol to smoothly straighten up and saunter over to Klaus with a grin.

He leaned over the back of the couch, draping himself across it until his face was placed directly beside Klaus's—the ideal bothersome position. "Rough day, brother?" He asked with mock sympathy.

"Sod off, Kol," was the grumbled retort from Klaus, his eyes never leaving the white sheet of drawing paper spread out on his lap, his charcoal pencil furiously outlining a dark figure on the page—a figure that is rapidly assuming the shape of a young woman with tumbling curls.

"_Oh_, I see, now," Kol lilted in delight as his eyes scanned the page, lips curling upwards deviously. "Woman troubles, hmm? Little Miss Blonde and Bouncy still managing to refuse your _irresistible _advances? How shocking!"

This time, Klaus tells Kol to go do something that would have been anatomically and physically impossible.

Even for a vampire.

Kol pressed his hands against his chest where his heart would have been, had it not shriveled up into a dry lump of black coal long ago, according to Rebekah. "Why Nik, I'm hurt. Is that any sort of language to use around your little brother?"

"Kol," Klaus bit out tersely, fingers curling tightly around his drawing pad until crinkly imprints of ten digits were quite visible. "We all know that you can out-swear a sailor in any language of your choosing—" A proud nod from Kol made him roll his eyes disparagingly. "—so kindly do me a favor and, once again, _bugger off_."

"You're hardly being nice," Kol complained loudly, and with an utter lack of respect for Klaus's eardrums given that he was still quite near. "Really, what would you feel like if tomorrow I should end up daggered and dead in a coffin again and the last words you ever spoke to me were 'bugger off'?"

"Exultation and pure unfettered joy, most likely," Klaus mumbled to himself, only half-paying attention as he penciled in soft waves of imagined golden hair and a bright, sunny smile onto his drawing.

Klaus gave no heed as a mock cross expression overtook Kol's face, the latter easily vaulting over the back of the couch to land next to his brother in a lazy heap. It was then that Klaus deigned to tear himself away from where he was immersed in his drawing and eye Kol with displeasure. These couches were rare antiquities, after all.

"Would it have taken you much effort to just _walk_?"

Kol's head tipped forwards in a lackadaisical nod. "I make it a point not to expand more energy than strictly necessary."

"You just spend a century lying on your _back_."

A hurt frown worked its way across Kol's mouth. "And whose fault was that, Nik?" In the blink of an eye, the frown morphed into a wily smirk and Kol was leaning forwards eagerly. "You _can _make it up to me by answering a simple question, however."

Raising his eyes to the high heavens and wondering what in his life he'd done to deserve this (the probable answer: quite a lot), Klaus sighed and capitulated. "About what, Kol?"

Sensing his victory, Kol leaned in eagerly. "About what's got our eldest brother looking like we just killed his puppy?"

"We never had a puppy, Kol. We were deprived children."

"Rebekah had a puppy once," Finn supplied tonelessly (and rather randomly) from his chair in the corner of the room that he had relocated to.

"No, she had a rabbit," Klaus corrected him, barely glancing his way. "And only for about four days, mind you, before Kol here had the brilliant idea of making it into stew."

"Oh yes. Did she ever forgive him for that?"

Klaus's lips curled. "Hardly. Why do you think she shoots him venomous looks whenever we pass a pet shop?"

"_Moving on_," Kol interrupted loudly, shooting an anxious glance at the door as though Rebekah would fall through it at any given moment, most probably shouting tearfully about rabbits and soulless murdering brothers before attempting to bash his head against a wall, as she was often wont to do. "Finn and I—" a sharp and meaningful cough emanated from Finn, causing Kol to sniff and amend, "Oh alright, _I _was wondering if you knew anything about Elijah's current paramour, or whatever bird's causing him to be a big moping vampire?"

Elijah's current paramour?

Once again, Klaus had to wonder at his younger brother's mental faculties—more specifically, just how many brain cells he had actually retained upon making the transition from human to vampire. Because really, one would most certainly have to be blind, deaf, and beyond all else, _dumb_ not to notice Elijah's preoccupation with one Miss Elena Gilbert.

Klaus snorted to himself, shaking his head derisively as he thought of Elijah's overwhelming guilt, written plainly on his face, following his betrayal of Elena during Klaus's first transformation; of Rebekah's relentless sulking for days after Elijah had immediately put a stop to her intended Elena-torture in the parking lot; of Elijah's eyes sweeping the mansion ballroom with a shadowed fervor during their Mother's party, and his subsequent slipping away after catching sight of a certain lovely brunette sheathed in a gown of shimmering black entering the room.

Contrary to what he liked to think, emotional subtlety was hardly one of Elijah's strong points, Klaus mused to himself. It was rare to find fault in his reserved, well-mannered brother, but Klaus sometimes wondered if Elijah even bothered to attempt masking his near-devotional affection for the Doppelganger, given how easily he could be read in her presence.

He laughed slightly to himself again, absently pondering, "Isn't it obvious?"

The ruminative words caught Kol's attention like blood to a shark. However, Klaus paid no mind to his younger brother's suddenly avid gaze upon him, instead choosing to tilt his head and scrutinize his drawing. He frowned to himself, squinting as he examined the sharp curve of pencil-Caroline's jaw, wondering if he ought to have made it softer, more round to capture the sweetness of her girlish face. A few embellishments with his charcoal pencil and it would be—

He snarled as the pad was whipped from his grasp, spirited away to the opposite end of the room by the blur that was none other than Kol.

Klaus's eye twitched as he attempted to summon the patience of an elder brother that he hadn't needed to call upon in nigh on a century. After all, he had just laid down the Parisian rugs in this room but a few months ago—he had absolutely no desire to stain the intricate designs with the distasteful sight of a graying, lifeless body were he to stake Kol. In addition, he wasn't feeling quite up to the long, grueling lecture that would ensue should Elijah return home only to discover the family sans one bothersome little vampire brother.

(Because really, no one could give a shame-inducing lecture like Elijah could.

Klaus sometimes thought it was some mysterious power that eldest siblings were blessed with, given that he had witnessed Elena Gilbert bestowing a few on young Jeremy a time or two…though nothing in the impressive realm of _his_ older brother, of course).

His temper suitably brought back underneath his control once again, Klaus's eyes flicked back to Kol almost wearily. "Are you planning on giving that back anytime soon and putting an end to your childish display?"

The drawing pad was tauntingly tossed from hand to hand. "Not until you tell me what you know, Nik."

Still twirling the pad around mockingly, Kol cast a speculative look at the open window.

Klaus warily followed the direction of his gaze, barely repressing a snarl as he practically divined the obvious way in which his younger brother's thoughts were heading. A brief trill of panic shot through him as he entertained a very real scenario of spending the next few hours hunting through the woods for his catapulted sketchpad, courtesy of Kol's damnably good throwing hand (unbeknownst to most, Kol had taken an earnest interest in baseball in the early nineteen hundreds).

"Elena Gilbert," Klaus bit out curtly, immediately extending an expectant hand out. "More likely than not, that's who's responsible for Elijah's…mood."

Kol appeared confused, and made no move to return Klaus's precious sketchpad to him. Not that that was out of the ordinary for him, but Klaus caught the expression and exhaled irritably. "The Doppelganger. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Wears a holier-than-thou look ninety-nine percent of the time?"

"Oooooh!" The enlightened crow of comprehension was short-lived, and quickly descended into a quieter "Oh." Kol rubbed his cheek in contemplation. "Is that the girl who's been coming over all hours of the night lately to talk to Elijah?"

"Your powers of observation are truly astounding Kol."

The insult flying straight over Kol's carefully-styled head, he asked, "And she's the one that made that peace treaty with you and Mother, hm? The really annoying one about being allowed to stay here as long as we didn't kill anyone or try to take over the world?"

"Yes."

A thoughtful frown appeared on Kol's face. "Isn't she the one those two buffoons were chasing after at the ball?"

"Be more specific about the buffoon part. There are plenty of those around here." The pointed look Klaus shot at Kol was, once again, entirely missed. A quietly observing Finn had to smother an amused smile behind one hand.

"I mean those two brothers, one of which our dear little sister decided to add to her impressive repertoire of conquests recently."

"Damon and Stefan Salvatore, yes," Klaus pronounced their names with quite a bit of abhorrence, his features darkening at the mere mention of the vampires he and Rebekah had privately renamed Impulsive Idiot #1 and Broody Idiot #2.

A low whistle rent the air, courtesy of Kol. "And our brother couldn't beat out those cretins? Or rather, this Elena girl actually had the gall to choose two baby vampires over _Elijah_?" He suddenly looked very understanding. "Man, no wonder brother's moping. Hell, _I'd_ be depressed if I had over a thousand years of experience and got served the friend-zone treatment from a girl I fancied."

He glanced up, wincing as he noticed the two incredulous stares aimed at him. "What?" He said defensively.

Klaus merely snorted. "'Friend zone?' Really, Kol?"

"I've been trying to learn the modern day lingo, Nik!" Kol sneered, crossing his arms. "Otherwise Bekah said I'd end up sounding like you—a pretentious, stuffy git."

"You—"

"Stop it," Finn injected, an expressive exasperation in his voice. "And Kol, how many times must I say it? Elijah does _not_ mope, moon, pine, sulk, or any variation thereof. Your conjectures are groundless, and I am growing tired of hearing them."

There was a surprised pause, for that had quite possibly been the longest amount of speech anyone had heard from Finn in a very long time.

Then came Kol's peevish snap of, "Oh, stop being such a brown-nosing brother's boy, Finn!"

And thus the argument was brought around full circle.

* * *

They spent another hour debating whether or not Elijah was, as Kol had put it, lovesick over Elena Gilbert.

Or rather, Kol had spent an hour talking nonstop at his brothers; Finn only half-listening with a highly skeptical expression, and Klaus silently weighing the pros and cons of daggering his brother and risking the wrath of his Mother and Elijah. It would only be temporarily, and it was quite possible that he could dagger Kol, stuff him in a closet somewhere for a few hours' peace, and then awaken him in time for the family dinner with no-one being any the wiser.

Much to Klaus's relief, the unceasing flow of babble coming from Kol suddenly grinded to a halt.

Unfortunately, it had only been due to the fact that something appeared to have caught Kol's attention.

"Oh!" Kol breathed, wicked anticipation flashing through his gaze as he sat up straight. "Hear that? Elijah's on his way in!" He cackled in a way that was a little worrying to his brothers. "_Now _I'll prove that I'm right about our big brother."

Finn and Klaus watched expressionlessly as Kol sped over to the small alcove at the opposing end of the room and beckoned pointedly to the other two. Knowing that it was the only way to appease the insistent Kol, Klaus groaned and set aside his notebook, reluctantly joining him. Finn followed suit with no greater degree of enthusiasm.

The three brothers, one fair haired and two dark, gathered in a tight huddle at the other end of the room. They watched silently as their eldest brother crossed the threshold of the foyer, shutting the large doors behind him with a resounding _thud._

"And now," Kol muttered under his breath, the low hum easily carrying to the keen ears of Fin and Klaus. "He's going to go over to the window and stand there for a while."

Elijah entered the room then, quirking an eyebrow as he noticed his brothers blatantly staring at him in an eerie and uncommon display of alliance (it was a rare day, after all, when one would happen upon Kol, Finn, _and _Niklaus peacefully coexisting in one area without leaving a trail of ruin in their wake). However, he apparently made the wise choice of ignoring his younger siblings in favor of idly wandering over to the sunlit window, all thoughts of his brothers fading as his face became an unreadable mask and his eyes darkened in rumination.

"See?" was Kol's triumphant murmur to the other two nonplussed Originals. "I _told_ you so." His eyes narrowed as he critically observed Elijah. "Now he's going to sigh," he mouthed inaudibly to Klaus and Finn, barely allowing even a breath to escape him, lest it disrupt his brother from his reverie. However, it was a tribute to Elijah's troubled preoccupation that he took absolutely no notice of his brothers' whisperings.

A deep, weary sigh emanated from their eldest brother.

"Then he'll tap his fingers on the windowsill."

A soft rhythm of _tap tap tap_ was played out as Elijah absentmindedly caressed the sill with restless fingers.

"And then he leans against the wall and stares some more."

There was the barest rustle of cloth as Elijah allowed his body to lean upon the white-washed walls, the hue of his dark hair in stark contrast to the paler color when he closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall as well.

Finn and Klaus blinked; Kol just looked victorious.

"Kol?" Klaus said pleasantly, his voice a whispery undertone.

"What?"

"You have far too much time on your hands."

* * *

"No, Kol."

"But—!"

"No. _Non. Nein. Ne._"

The above conversation was one oft-repeated over the course of the ensuing week, as Klaus and Finn soon became experts at fending off their mutual younger brother's relentless attacks. Because somehow, Kol had gotten it into his head that his time would be best spent in the service of endeavoring to bring lifelong happiness to Elijah, and that his two brothers were best suited to aiding him in this noble venture.

Kol had figured that the most efficient way to go about bringing that lifelong happiness to Elijah would be by none other than coercing the object of Elijah's affections to admit similar feelings for him.

In other words, after a thousand years of existence, Kol was finally delving into the previously untried career of matchmaker, much to the continued suffering of Finn and Klaus. Rebekah was wisely not invited to join in on his mad plans given that her hatred of Elena was common knowledge, and she would probably invest more time in trying to subtly push the Doppelganger off a cliff than she would trying to convince the girl to go for her brother.

Klaus had forgotten that Kol, boredom, and the possibility of a wicked scheme with which to occupy his time was a surefire combination for disaster on some monumental scale.

The last time Kol had sought entertainment to cure the drudgery of everyday life, it had been the 15th century and Klaus had one morning awoken to a hysterically chortling brother, a horde of angry villagers with torches and pitchforks outside his front door, and a cacophony of villager voices screaming out "Witch!" while simultaneously trying to break down his door and drag him off to be burned at the stake. That little interlude hadn't ended well for either Kol or the villagers and had taught Klaus a valuable lesson in being infinitely wary of his little brother's plotting.

Finn, despite having just spent the last nine hundred years in a coffin and therefore not as much time around Kol and his ludicrous ideas, was no less hesitant to join. After all, he had just rejoined the world of the living—his simplest desire was merely to reacquaint himself with a strange new time that involved moving pictures, noisy vehicles, and, perhaps the most wonderful invention of all, indoor plumbing.

Unfortunately for them, Kol was nothing but tenacious. Determined to rescue his favorite brother from the bowels of doomed-love hell, he was similarly bent on dragging Finn and Klaus into his preposterous schemes. He dogged them relentlessly, popping up in the oddest of places (Finn had memorably locked himself in the bathroom the other day in a desperate bid for peace and quiet) with his bright eyes shining and an eager grin firmly fixed on his face, ready to badger whichever brother he had managed to corner.

That afternoon, Klaus and Finn had retreated to the mansion's library in the hopes that Kol's legendary dislike of the written word and philistine personality would give them some measure of respite, but they had no such luck.

A heavy sigh left Klaus' lips as a loud _bang_ of the library doors announced his riotous little brother's presence for the umpteenth time in five days. Leaning against a bookshelf across the room, Finn was seemingly holding the same wearying thoughts, his eyebrows gathering together in a frown as he stared blankly at an indignant Kol.

"I don't see how you two could possibly be so coldhearted," Kol professed without any ado or ceremony, with enough hurt in his voice that Klaus almost believed he was genuine.

But then again, this _was_ Kol—the master of falsified emotions and one of the most unstable personalities known to man (Klaus included).

Klaus flipped through the musty book he was holding in a bored manner, set on firmly ignoring his irksome sibling in the hopes that he would lose interest and _leave_.

"Nik! Don't you think you owe it to Elijah, after daggering him so cruelly, brother?"

Klaus glowered at Kol, his posture tensing at the reminder.

"And Finn! Wouldn't you do anything to make our dear big brother happy?" Kol queried with a disturbing amount of sincerity, causing Finn to shift uncomfortably. "I mean, come on! Remember the time he rescued you from that rampaging bear when we were young?"

"Kol…you were the one he rescued…" Finn pointed out slowly. "Seeing as you found it amusing to poke a sleeping bear with a stick."

Kol blinked, ignoring Klaus's not-so-subtle cough of "_idiot"_. "Oh…right. Huh." He shrugged, spinning to face Klaus. "But Nik! What about that one instance where Elijah saved you from going over that waterfall, just as you were about to topple over the edge and into a watery grave!"

"Kol…that was _not_ me," Klaus said with an irritated scowl on his face.

"It wasn't?"

"Hardly, you idiot. That was you."

"Really? Could have sworn…" Kol murmured to himself, before allowing his shoulders to move up and down in another carefree shrug. "Oh well." Then he brightened. "Wait! What about that time when he stopped a hundred savage natives from skinning you alive and roasting you over a fire?"

"You," Klaus and Finn chorused wearily.

"Rebekah and the abnormally large pumpkin of doom?"

"You."

"Stampeding buffalo?"

"You."

"See, now I think you're just _lying_," was the sulky accusation from Kol, his brows furrowed in consternation.

Klaus smirked. "We're not lying, Kol. But of all the things to carry over from your human life, did it really have to be your abysmally horrendous memory?" He ducked just in time to avoid the first edition copy of _War and Peace_ that lodged itself in the wall where his head had been but a moment before. He eyed the newly-made hole in his previously pristine wall with displeasure, before directing his irked gaze to a smug Kol. "I hope you know you're fixing that."

"_Bite me_, Nik."

"Well, since you asked," Klaus drawled, allowing his eyes to darken and fangs to elongate noticeably. However, his entertainment was cut short as Finn stepped forwards with a thunderous expression, placing a restraining hand on Klaus's shoulder and sending a warning glance at a bristling Kol.

"Enough, both of you. This behavior is senseless." His deep tone brooked no room for argument; his grave face cowed both brothers into momentary silence. "Kol."

"Yes?" Kol's voice squeaked slightly as he spoke—understandable considering that while Finn spent a majority of the time as a rather mellow person, he'd inherited their intimidating father's crazy eyes and uncanny talent for freezing a man's blood with a single look.

"Should we aid you in this, you must agree to two items." Finn ignored the ironic expression of betrayal that flashed on Klaus's face at his defection.

Suitably quelled, Kol gave a questioning, "Uh, yes?"

Tightening his hold on a still-grumbling Klaus, Finn continued, "One: you will grant Niklaus and myself a three-week recuperation period afterwards in which you will refrain from speaking, and if you absolutely must will only do so in nothing louder than a whisper."

Moping, Kol replied with a piqued "Fine."

Nodding in satisfaction, Finn finished, "Two: in the all-too-inevitable event that Elijah discovers what it is that has been happening, you will accept full responsibility and blame."

Kol paled at that condition, but only hesitated for a moment before giving a markedly more resigned "Fine."

Elijah's wrath was not something to be taken lightly. Still, he would merely have to ensure that Elijah remained completely unaware of what was going on until he and the little Doppelganger were happily in the throes of relationship bliss, and Elijah would be so grateful to his little brother that there would be absolutely no urge to pulverize him for meddling. The scenario whirling through Kol's head was easier said than done, given that he had never yet managed to pull the wool over Elijah's eyes yet…but Kol was an optimistic vampire.

Or he was a vampire lacking that little conscientious voice in his head that tells us when our ideas are utterly ludicrous and stupid to the extreme, but why quibble?

"Very well, brother," Kol said with a nod. "It's a deal, then."

Klaus gave Finn a long-suffering stare as Kol bounded out, satisfied at having pestered his victory out of his brothers and clearly already plotting on how best to end the drought that was Elijah's love life. "I have absolutely no idea of why I'm being forced into this, Finn."

An unnaturally smug smile spread across Finn's normally impassive face, and he patted Klaus's shoulder lightly as he passed by. "Look at it this way, _brother_: you have about nine hundred years worth of family bonding time to work off." He could practically feel his half-brother's glare burning a vicious hole through his back. "Enjoy."

* * *

**This is going to be a short little multi-chaptered story, maybe three chapters if all goes well. And best of all, it's definitely going to be a light-hearted Elijah/Elena story, with little angst or drama. It's hard to resist spinning tragic stories for these two (potentially) star-crossed lovers (and I'm definitely among the guilty ones that do so XD), but even Elijah and Elena deserve a little cuteness now and then right?**

**While I'm truly going to attempt to keep everyone as in character as possible, I might take a few liberties with Kol's personality, but not too many. From his teasing interactions with Rebekah, and from Klaus's amusing and snippy bantering with him, I really think Kol is probably the most mischievous and amusement-loving Original sibling. We don't see much of him or Finn on screen anyways, so I feel some creative interpretation is quite justified in this case. **

**Please read and review, I'd love to know what my fellow Elejah shippers think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**IMPORTANT NOTE:**

**This story is set slightly after the events of the episode "Dangerous Liaisons" (the famous Mikaelson party episode), with one small change: Esther and Finn haven't plotted the downfall of the entire Original family we all know and love. Therefore, none of the events/episodes after "Dangerous Liaisons have occurred—Esther didn't try to murder her children, Elijah didn't skip town, Finn's not dead, Elena's still human etc.**

* * *

Rebekah strolled into the mansion, arms laden with shopping bags, and abruptly came to a screeching halt at the unspeakable sight of horror before her.

A shriek tore from her throat, its pitch threatening to crack the glass panes of the foyer windows.

"Bloody hell, Bekah!" Kol said, shooting her a look of annoyance from where he was crouched upon the ground. A sour-faced Finn and grumpy Niklaus were huddled on either side of him, a long scrap of paper unfurled before them. "Try it a little louder next time, why don't you? I'm sure there's only a few hundred people in the world denied the pleasure of hearing _your_ dulcet tones."

One perfectly manicured nail pointed at him accusingly. "Just _what_ are you three up to? You _never_ get along like this. Oh god. You're plotting something aren't you?" Rebekah's blue gaze fell on the paper near Kol, who immediately moved to cover it up.

Another yell escaped her, except this time with a ring of triumph to it. "I _knew _it! What is it then? World domination? Revenge? Wait…a prank. A revenge prank. On _me_? Kol, I _told _you I didn't mean to step on your stupid pet spider when I was six!"

A muffled snicker came from Klaus. "Really, Rebekah," he drawled. "Paranoid much?"

"When it comes to _him_ I am," she said hysterically, eyeing Kol, who was trying very hard to maintain an angelically innocent face that looked very strange on him. "And if you do _anything_ to me, just wait 'till Mother and Elijah hear about it!"

At the mention of Elijah, Rebekah noticed, all three brothers turned slightly pale.

It was difficult to refrain from rolling her eyes. Big, scary, ancient vampires—all of whom were still fearful of calling down their eldest brother's wrath upon them when they made a misstep. Well, Rebekah couldn't blame them…all Elijah had to do was put on his intense, serious face and stare a body down to freak the hell out of them.

"What are you _doing_ anyways?" Rebekah asked finally, deciding that when it came to her brothers it was better to be informed. "If it doesn't involve me, that is." She brightened. "Nik, are you planning to use the Doppelganger in some nefarious plot again?" She'd been regaled with pleasant tales of Elena's temporary-demise during Nik's hybrid ritual, fervently frustrated that she had missed it. "Possibly involving a very long, painful death?"

"No, Rebekah." Slightly disappointing, but she could deal.

"A short, abrupt, painful death?"

"No."

Rebekah's forehead wrinkled. "A good maiming?"

"_No._"

Kol glanced over at his sister, eyebrows raised. "Really, Bekah, what exactly did this girl do to make you hate her so much?"

Rebekah sniffed. "She stabbed me with a dagger."

"Is that all? Hell, Nik's stabbed us all with a dagger, and we wholeheartedly forgave him!" Kol pointed out cheerfully.

"Actually, my hand still hurts a bit from where Finn impaled it straight through, you know…"

"Alright, so we half-heartedly forgave him. Mainly because Mother threatened to chain us all up in the basement until we had rekindled warm, family feelings between us, but still…" Kol shrugged. "Anyways, you better get used to the Gilbert girl. She might just be…part of the family someday."

Had Klaus held his sketchbook in his hands, he would have immediately set about capturing Rebekah's expression in all its I-want-to-vomit glory. As it was, he contented himself with being grateful for a vampire's photographic memory.

"You mean…you mean…" Rebekah threw up her hands in exasperation, mouth dropping open in preparation of allowing her full lung capacity some exercise. She didn't disappoint. "I can't believe this! Nik, didn't you learn your lesson the first two times!"

Klaus stared blankly at her.

"First Tatia, then Katerina, and now _Elena_? Just when I thought your taste could sink no lower!" Rebekah ranted. "Well, when _this _one cruelly breaks your heart and leaves you a shattered little mess of pathetic feelings, don't you dare come to me whinging about it!"

With one final sneer, Rebekah spun, gathered her fallen shopping bags, and stomped off muttering derisively about idiot brothers.

Silence followed her exit.

"…I think she slightly misconstrued your meaning, Kol," Finn said, gaze shifting to a green-looking Klaus.

* * *

After Rebekah's furor-filled departure, Finn studied the poorly drawn diagrams Kol had hastily scrawled out upon a spread of paper, all of which were resplendent with stick figures and nearly illegible handwriting.

Kol, it had to be said, did not share any of his half-brother's penchant for the finer points of artistry (although every Mikaelson refrained from mentioning it, given that Kol could be quite touchy. Klaus still bordered on weepiness when he thought back to their time in Renaissance Italy, when da Vinci had good-naturedly criticized one of Kol's pitiful artistic attempts, and Kol had cheerfully responded by putting a fist through a now-lost da Vinci original painting.)

"Let me see if I understand this, Kol. Your plan is to interrogate the girl's nearest and dearest to find out whether she's in love with Elijah?"

"Right in one, Finn!" Kol said, sticking his thumbs enthusiastically in the air in some exuberant gesture Finn wasn't familiar with.

"Elena. Me. Why the _hell_ would she think that." Klaus, in the aftermath of Rebekah's disturbing conjectures, had retreated into a state of angry mutterings and confused questions.

Finn rubbed a weary hand through his short, neatly-trimmed locks—a contemplative habit he had retained since childhood.

Ignoring Klaus's mumblings, Finn said, "And where exactly do you propose we begin?"

"Elena. Elena-sodding-_Gilbert. _How. Why."

Kol tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I thought we'd ask Nik. He's the one most acquainted with her after all. Figure he'd know where to begin."

They both cast dubious looks at the still-dazed Klaus, who still seemed to be in the throes of disgusted shock.

"…or not," Kol sighed out. "Let's just start with that little blonde vampire who was at Mother's ball, why don't we? She seemed to be friendly with the Doppelganger."

* * *

Have you ever heard that joke about the three vampires in a bar?

No?

There really isn't one.

But one sunny day in Mystic Falls, there was a charming little scenario in which three ancient vampires strolled into a Grill and met a bubbly blonde baby vampire, who then proceeded to hand their asses to them one by one.

It proceeded as such:

**Klaus: **Hello, Caroline.

**Caroline (sipping daintily from her lemonade, before deigning to look at the three vampires awkwardly hovering about her): **Oh. It's _you_.

**Kol: **_Ouch_. I've never heard that much disdain in one pronoun.

**Klaus: **Shut up, Kol. Now, Caroline—

**Caroline: **Can I just ask you something? Is it your new nefarious goal to stalk me to death or what? Because if it is, I'll have you know I'm already dead, so you can kindly just _buzz off _and save yourself the trouble.

**Kol (in an undertone-that-isn't-really-an-undertone): **Buuuurn.

**Kol is suddenly nowhere to be found, as Klaus has kindly taken it upon himself to create a Kol-shaped crater in the wall. All vampires steadily ignore the outraged cry of "Hey!" from a working Matt. **

**Caroline: **You know, you're really lucky we're the only ones in here. Of course, everyone in this town sorta seems to look the other way when suspicious things happen, so…

**Klaus: **Caroline, contrary to what you believe, I'm here to ask you a simple question—

**Caroline: **Oh for the love of—! _No_. Okay? No. No, I do not want another creepily drawn picture of me, no matter how pretty it is. No, I do not want to go to Paris. No, I do not want to go to Greece. No, no, no.

**Kol (peeling himself off the wall): **He really offered you all that?

**Caroline: **He tried. Though I don't know_ what _I did to make him think I could be bought.

**Kol: **You'll have to excuse my brother. He tends to be a little stunted romantically, ever since his first love went and—

Caroline watched blandly as Finn firmly smothered his brother's words with one strategically placed palm, his grave eyes regarding her with a rather mistrusting stare.

Honestly, Caroline thought. With this family's whole solidarity thing going on, they reminded her of something out of _The Godfather _or something. And hell, she wouldn't have put it past this particular family to have been one of those shady sunglass-wearing, suit-donning, shiny-shoed creeps from the nineteen twenties.

She made a mental note to check her bed for dismembered pony heads after this little meeting.

"Okaaaay," she droned out, indolently swirling her straw about in her lemonade. "So if _he—" _she nodded towards Klaus, "Isn't here to make any more thoroughly unwanted advances on me, is one of you going to tell me why my day is being ruined by your presence?"

Kol's head fell to the side as he gazed at her, unaffected by her snappish tone. "You're not a very nice person, are you?"

"Wha—" Caroline's mouth dropped open, and she seemed to swell up with indignation. _Not nice?_ Airheaded, girlish, conceited, too-happy, quick-tempered—maybe. But _not nice?_ "I am _so_! And that's rich coming from _you_, Mr. I've-Probably-Fucked-and-Fed-My-Way-Across-Every-Continent."

A pleased smile spread across Kol's face, causing Caroline to bury her golden head into her hands. "That _wasn't_ a compliment, by the way."

"Kol has a unique talent," Klaus told the disbelieving girl. "He's wholly incapable of distinguishing between flattery and insult."

"Lucky him."

Kol and Finn glanced between the two inquisitively, the comfortably bantering atmosphere that had risen between the young vampire and their brother an oddity. Finn would have been just as pleased to leave them alone (frankly, this snippy little vampire girl unnerved him—probably due to her uncanny personality resemblance to Rebekah), but Kol being Kol was unable to bear the spotlight straying from him for long.

"So, now that we've established you're in actuality a very nice person—" Kol interjected.

"Uh-huh." Caroline gave a noisy, purposeful slurp of her lemonade.

"And we just happen to have one measly little question that needs answering before we'll leave you be…"

"Keeping in mind that questions about my personal life and family are strictly off-limits so they can't be used against me for nefarious reasons, _fine_." The look of long-suffering on her face gave the indication that she was being prodded with hot coals as opposed to being asked a simple question.

"Oh good," Kol chirped, clapping his hands together with a sly smile. "Because it's not _your_ life we're after, but the dear little Doppelganger's. You're close, aren't you?"

The lemonade in her mouth was promptly spat back into the cup. She shot a vicious look at Klaus. "You're after Elena _again_, you bastard? You're already a hybrid! What about the treaty?"

Her hand was already halfway to her phone, ready to send a mass text to everyone that the Originals were, once again, their sworn enemies. Her wrist was caught by cool fingers before she could finish, and she looked up into Klaus's faintly amused face.

"Not her physical _life_, Caroline," he sighed out. "Merely her personal one."

Rather than serving to placate her disturbed countenance, her expression further degenerated into one of absolute horror. "Oh, _yuck!_ You're in love with my best friend?"

"Bloody-buggering _no_." Klaus rubbed the bridge of his nose in an aggravated manner. "Why does _everyone_ seem to be having that misconception today?"

Only appearing slightly less suspicious (as well as a tiny bit relieved) Caroline scooted away as far as she could from Klaus, to the very edge of her bar stool. "Then…what exactly are you guys after?"

"Love," Klaus crooned softly, a charming smile gracing his lips. Undeterred by Caroline's migration away from him, he leaned in slightly. "Just be a dear and tell us if Elena fancies my brother Elijah. Is it so difficult?" He placed a caressing hand on Caroline's tan cheek…

…which he and Kol and Finn seemed to immediately realize was a huge mistake as Caroline's baby blue eyes flashed dangerously and her smile turned saccharine sweet.

Klaus's hand was immediately whipped away, as her killer smile was a bit too similar to Rebekah's on one of her impending verbal emasculation sprees.

Caroline's precisely filed nails (colored a bright bubblegum pink) tapped idly against the tabletop, their sharp edges making tiny little imprints on the surface.

"So, let me see if I'm getting this straight, hm?" She tilted her head as her girlishly syrupy voice assaulted the Originals' ears, causing them to slowly back away. After all, the best advice when confronted with a dangerous, unpredictable female was _no sudden movements. _

"You come in here, expecting me to _betray_ my _best friend's trust_ because _your_ brother doesn't have balls enough to tell her how he feels, and thus you resort to stupid, _stupid_ methods of trying to find out what _she_ feels?" Caroline scoffed derisively as the three Original brothers (ancient vampires they may have been, but they were still _males_) looked as though they were desperately trying to decode what she had said. The blonde flicked her hair airily over her shoulder, eyeing them with supreme superiority. "Did I _miss_ anything? And really, what are we, _third graders? _My friend likes your friend type of thing? _Really?_"

Kol raised his hand cheerfully, sending a devilish grin at Caroline. "You forgot how _he_—" He pointed helpfully at his glaring older hybrid brother, "Just tried to _seduce_ the information out of you, I believe. What a cad!"

"_Kol_—" Klaus gritted out, but that was all he had time for before being cut off by a beaming Caroline.

"Hah! Right you are, nearly forgot about that one." She sent him a fluttery smile, complete with batting eyelashes. It was, as Bonnie would have said, the sex smile. "Thanks. Kol, isn't it?"

Kol smirked in reply; Klaus merely looked murderous (or…more murderous than usual).

"And you?" Caroline said flatly, eyeing Finn, who seemed rather taken aback at being addressed so directly. Most people liked to pretend he was merely an extension of the wall, given that they were discomfited by his utter lack of expression and grim stare. "What are you here for?"

"…I was press-ganged into helping."

"Oh." Caroline mulled over that for a scarce second, before shrugging genially. "Alright, then."

She hopped gracefully off of her barstool, strode over to the door, and kicked it open in one fluid movement (in retrospect, she was most likely picturing a certain hybrid's head as being at the end of her foot's kicking trajectory).

All three males stepped backwards fearfully as Caroline glared them, bearing an uncanny likeness to a snarling mother bear.

"And let's get one thing straight," Caroline said, cocking her head to the side, a cascade of golden hair following in the movement's wake. "If I catch _any_ of you lurking around me again, fishing for information on _my_ best friend's private life, I will raise hell on you. Literally, I will dug up some ancient dead dude with the power to start a zombie apocalypse, just for the sake of raising that aforementioned hell."

With that, she spun on her heel, a loud _clack_ cracking upon the pavement, and she waltzed off into the street.

The doors slammed shut behind her. A petrified Matt, hiding in the storage room, wondered exactly when his ex-girlfriend had grown more balls than he himself had.

Shaking his head dazedly, Kol wore the same partly amused, partly incredulous look his brothers did. "Nik, what the hell _is_ it with you and being attracted to psycho girls?"

* * *

Their next stop was a deceptively normal-looking house, with cheery flowerboxes lining the windows and crisp white paint presenting a sweet picture.

Kol smirked at the oh-so-human sight, wondering which of the little Doppelganger's friends dwelled here. And, confidant in the knowledge that she had no other frightening vampire best friends like the ferocious blonde one, was bloodily anticipating instilling a healthy amount of good, old-fashioned vampire fear in whichever puny human inhabited this place.

Who would emerge from this very picture of domestic sweetness? A pink-cheeked cheerleader, perhaps, naïve and cowardly and who would obligingly faint if Kol so much as said 'Boo'? A timid classmate, who would lose their very sanity at the revealing of Kol's prominently veined and alabaster face?

A rush of excitement trilled through him, his hands unconsciously rubbing together at being able to indulge in his long-denied pastime of tormenting mortals (Elijah's withering gaze was enough to effectively kill any blood lust stone cold dead). Unbeknownst to a plotting Kol, Finn and Klaus eyed their brother's suddenly crazy smile and low cackles, surreptitiously inching away from him in what was equivalent to the regular human denial of being related to a particularly oddball family member in public.

"And what delicious little human lives here, Nik?" Kol queried, sweeping the premises with trained eyes.

Premises, that, unfortunately for an unaware Kol, belonged to none other than Bonnie Bennett, witch-in-training with a fondness for rupturing brain vessels without so much as a by-your-leave.

A ripple of incredulity tore through Klaus at the wholly unfitting description of the witch whose dwelling this was. Little, yes; delicious, no—not unless you were masochistically fond of biting into girls who would sooner shatter your skull than look at you. "Elena's best friend."

Kol's eyes glowed almost eerily. "Excellent."

"Ah, Kol?" Klaus spoke up, raising an eyebrow at his overeager sibling. "I believe it might be better that _I _handle this certain acquaintance."

"Why?"

Klaus snorted derisively, envisioning the creature that most certainly lay in wait within that little human abode for any vampire stupid enough to _really_ piss her off (which his hotheaded little brother was more than capable of doing), while murmuring, "Because I rather enjoy retaining my place among the pseudo-living, thank-you-very-much." And because Elijah would be thoroughly put out with him if he allowed their young sibling to mouth off to a witch who liked vampires only one way: completely dead.

Or at least more dead than before.

Kol's only reply was an arrogant sneer and a dismissive, "_Please_, Nik. While these humans may be quite adept at thwarting your, admittedly ridiculous, plots on a near daily basis, they won't be able to pull any such thing on _me_."

Finn watched in silent interest as Niklaus came to a screeching halt on the pavement, his eyes narrowing to near slits at their mutual relative who was in the process of confidently sauntering away. Finn had only witnessed such a deadly expression on his half-brother's face but a few times in their long existence—once when Rebekah had chewed the head off of his favorite rag doll as a baby, and the other when Elijah had inadvertently captured the attentions of a village girl Nik had been working up the courage to speak to for weeks when they were both young.

The first had ended in a furious tantrum by an enraged five-year-old; the second event had been succeeded by a full month of moping and silent treatment. Needless to say, Finn's younger brother was as unpredictable in his anger as his entire personality was in general.

"You know, Kol," Klaus drawled out unhurriedly, a hint of sharp teeth peeking out from his barely moving lips. "I do believe you're right. You take this one, will you?"

Kol angled a cocky look at his two lagging brothers. "Glad you see it my way, Nik."

As Kol bounded up the last few steps leading up to the house's front porch (not even bothering to right the flowerpots he knocked over in his haste…because he was just evil like that), Finn had to wonder at the dark chuckle that emanated from Klaus's throat. The musical chime of the doorbell caught his sensitive hearing a moment later, and his attention was divided between a veritably bouncing Kol and a maniacally anticipative Klaus.

A few moments later, the soft patter of approaching human footsteps was easily detected and the front door swung open.

In the doorway stood a young woman, light brown eyes peeking out curiously from a sweet, heart-shaped face.

Finn raised an eyebrow. This was the best friend Niklaus was so wary of confronting? She looked no different than any other mortal adolescent Finn had ever seen.

Only a second later, however, Finn hastily revised that poorly-formed opinion.

For upon observation of who her unexpected visitors were, the tentative welcome on the girl's face dissolved into a searing look of denigration. The dislike emanating from her, enough to kill an empath stone dead, served in evoking his more cautious side after only a second's exposure. Finn took a subtle half-step towards Kol and Klaus, ready to forcibly drag them away if need be.

Bonnie Bennett, for her part, stayed absolutely frozen in place, her traitorous muscles locked up and feet riveted to the floor from shock. Her heart seemed to run at double the normal pace and a thousand different possibilities of such a nefarious visit skittered through her mind—most of them concluding with them standing over her lifeless body. Treaty or no, she trusted those damn Originals about as much as she liked them…which was, to say, not at all.

"Alright, human," Kol clapped his hands together with a handsome smile, plowing heedlessly through the tense atmosphere. "Just tell us if the Doppelganger's in love with my dear big brother and I won't brutally murder your friends and loved ones."

There was a moment of deathly silence.

Bonnie stared blankly at the sunny Original, as though attempting to deconstruct and decode his words for a hidden meaning—some dark, evil Original agenda to destroy all of humankind, perhaps. Because there was certainly, absolutely, no freakin' way she was being questioned by three ancient vampires about her best friend's love life.

No. Just…no.

"Kol," Finn sighed out in exasperation after a drawn out pause. "You are truly an idiot."

"Yes, Kol," Klaus added in a deadpan voice, despite the fact that his blue eyes were glinting with an almost unholy glee. "Antagonize the witch who has the ability to melt your, admittedly small, brain with a single look, shall we?"

In an impressive display of doing the scientifically impossible, Kol's already bloodless face turned that much paler. "Er…witch?" With his bugging eyes and gaping mouth, he more resembled an Original Chihuahua more than an Original vampire.

Finn threw a suddenly comprehending glance first at the wickedly sneering Klaus, who was clearly garnering a fair amount of pleasure from their brother's panic, to the bemused girl wordlessly watching their interaction.

Bonnie smirked, safe in the confines of her vampire-proof home, raising an eyebrow at the suddenly panicking Original.

"Bonnie Bennett," she said casually, folding her arms and leaning against the doorway. With the impeccable manners instilled in her by her grandmother (and perhaps the smallest hint of _cross me and die, bastard_) she continued nonchalantly, "Pleased to meet you."

Her sardonic tone should not have to be noted in this instance.

"Bennett?" Kol repeated in bewilderment, the name clearly sinking into his brain like a leaden weight of remembrance. "Bennett? The Doppelganger's best friend is a _Bennett _witch?" He spun to glare at a grinning Klaus, who seemed to be quite enjoying having Bonnie's murderous ire directed at someone other than him for once. "Nik, you arse," he growled, his accent coming out more pronounced. "You couldn't have told me that before I _threatened _her?"

Klaus shrugged. "You didn't bother to ask."

"And why the hell is Elijah in love with a girl whose best friend could turn him into a toad?"

"Now that's just silly," Bonnie interjected with a faux pleasant smile that, in actuality, lowered the surrounding air temperature about thirty degrees. "And toads are overrated. I'm much more of a 'turn their insides into jelly and pop their blood vessels' type of girl, actually." Her smile quickly morphed into a vicious scowl, her eyes pinning Kol in place as though eyeing up a target. "Care to see?"

In some bizarre, immediate reversal of mood, Kol switched from 'surprised fear' to his special 'I've-seduced-a-thousand-women' smolder. A sly smirk crept across his lips as his gaze deliberately flicked from the waves of dark hair to petite bare feet. "Oh, I'm sure there's _plenty_ that you could show me that I'd enjoy, love."

The earlier moment of deathly silence? Copy and paste.

Except this time it was accompanied by the audible _slap_ of Klaus's hand across his mouth as he struggled to contain his laughter, and Finn's heavy sigh as he wondered at his youngest brother's unchanged tendency of attempting to flirt his way out of troublesome situations with girls.

In contrast to the exasperation of the two Originals, Bonnie just wore a faint look of horror, as though she weren't quite sure which was worse: being hit with the knowledge that her best friend was not only a vampire magnet, but an _Original_ vampire magnet; or the fact that she, Bonnie Bennett, was on the receiving end of some _extremely _unwanted attentions.

"Y-you…did you j-just—" she couldn't finish, merely giving a baffled shake of her head.

"A stutterer, hm?" Kol leaned forwards to the shock-immobilized girl, tilting his head. "Well, usually I like girls with sharp tongues, but I'd certainly make an exception in your case, little witch."

He gave a guileless smile.

The repulsed disbelief wore off as soon as his cocky voice invaded her ears again. Bonnie quirked an eyebrow, her mouth twisting into an interesting combination of a sneer and answering toothy grin.

And then there was a surge of light, a pained yelp, and Klaus and Finn watched impassively as their youngest brother went whirling through the air like some sort of flying vampire spinning top and landed in a neat clump of shrubbery beside the porch. Their ears were then assailed with the resonant slamming of a door by an irate Bennett witch that shook the very foundations of the porch they stood on. This was accompanied by a muffled shout that sounded oddly like "And _stay out_, you old pervert!"…but even with vampire hearing, one couldn't be too sure.

After a few seconds of waiting for their brother to emerge from his newly-found resting place, Finn pointed out, in his usual sensible manner, "We should probably make sure she didn't kill him."

He was granted a long-suffering look from a Niklaus. "Must we really?"

"He's our brother."

Klaus shot Finn another look, this one meaning _And that's supposed to mean something to me?_

Rolling his eyes, Finn took an extended moment to try and think up another plausible reason to check on the wellbeing of Kol. "Rebekah would be sad."

An inelegant snort came from the blonde vampire. "Oh please, Finn. She'd merely be upset that she missed such a delightful scene."

"Elijah would start subtly leaving those _The Importance of Family _self-help pamphlets in your room again."

Klaus blanched, and immediately set off towards the bushes in which Kol had still yet to stir from.

He wasn't difficult to locate, even amidst the thickness of flourishing greenery—there was one booted foot comically sticking straight up in the air, advertising his location.

"Really Kol," Klaus admonished as he meandered over to his sprawled brother. He mercilessly prodded him with his foot, rather in the way that one would examine a dead animal. "A thousand years old and you're recycling the same pick-up lines? Pathetic. I'm ashamed to claim any blood relation to you."

The neatly trimmed hedges outside the house that had conveniently (unfortunately) broken Kol's fall rustled at Klaus's goading. A low groan emitted from the bushes, as Kol weakly stirred from the courtesy jolt of unpleasant magic the little bi—erm, _witch_—had been so unkind as to give him. In an ill-temper now, and irritably picking off leaves and dirt clods that had found their way onto his personage, Kol retorted, "Don't worry, brother, you're only _half_-related to me, remember?"

"Still," Klaus smirked, undeterred by the insult to his parentage. "_I'm_ not the one lying with my bum stuck in the bushes because I was stupid enough to attempt and flirt my way out of danger, am I Kol?"

Glaring, and ignoring the mockingly-extended hand Klaus had offered him, Kol hauled himself from his plant prison with a grunt of effort. He eyeballed the house with a decidedly unhappy look of contemplation, as though he were considering burning it straight to the brick and mortar foundation.

As though easily gleaning his thoughts, Klaus snorted and offered a bit of advice. "Try it, little brother. I guarantee that next time you'll be picking branch-sized twigs out of your gut if you do."

"Oh _shut_ _up_," was the snarled response, as Kol stalked away from the site of his dignity's demise (trying not to look as though he was fleeing as quickly as he could), leaving two sniggering brothers and assorted leaves and twigs trailing behind him.

* * *

They had decided, for the interests of all involved, that the most efficient plan of attack was to split up. More ground would be covered that way, more people interrogated…although Klaus had the feeling Finn had eagerly suggested the idea because he was tired of listening to Klaus and Kol's incessant back-and-forth bickering.

Apparently, nine hundred years in a coffin wasn't quite enough to do anything for the perpetual headache that his siblings were experts at inducing.

A sigh escaped the hybrid as he plodded towards the public basketball court, mentally batting away all thoughts of his stoic and hyperactive brothers.

Klaus eyed the basketball court with a thinly-veiled aura of disgust, shaking his head in derision as he observed the young humans loitering around the place, engrossed in pelting each other with orange balls. _Really_, the things humans came up with for entertainment—and people asked why vampires fed on humans. Dumb animals, the lot of them—there were no other species on earth that made themselves so ostentatious for predators by helpfully congregating en masse in a single, open area for extended periods of time.

His mouth nearly watered at the thought of a violent feeding spree…and then his eyes promptly watered as the undeniable stink of sweat and body odor smacked right into his sensitive nose.

_Urgh_. Klaus's nose wrinkled in the universal sign of prim repulsion, and he hastily scanned the area for the particular human he had traced here. It was sometimes difficult to distinguish all the bland meat-sacks from one another, and he vainly tried to summon a mental image of the Gilbert boy he was currently searching for.

All that he ended up with was a vaguely male-looking Elena, her familiar 'I'm-so-morally-superior-to-you' glower fixed firmly on her face.

Really, what Elijah saw in the chit he would never quite understand. Katerina, at least, had had the undeniable sex appeal that could turn a dead man's head, and Tatia had worn charming gracefulness like a well-fitting cloak.

Klaus conveniently ignored that fact that he had recently been chasing after the vampire equivalent of a blonde, bouncy bunny rabbit who had a fondness for doing the aforementioned nose wrinkle of abhorrence whenever he came within five feet of her.

When he finally saw the vaguely familiar lanky form and messy brown hair of the Gilbert boy, he felt relief and triumph. Triumph that he would surely be the first among his brothers to resolve this irritating question of Elena's affections, and relief that he could escape the overwhelming sea of perspiration and testosterone stinking up his nose.

Elena's brother glanced up as he sensed the approaching visitor, and promptly blanched when catching sight of the blond hybrid sauntering towards him, usual cocky smile in place. Jeremy's hands clenched on the orange basketball clutched in his hold, the vervain bracelet wrapped around his wrist jingling as he did so.

"Klaus."

"Jeremy," Klaus greeted with only a slightly twisted smile, drawing nearer to the boy. The smile was a weaker variation of his 'I'm going to snack on your neck and laugh evilly while I do so' grin and just a tad bit stronger than his 'You are a mere human and I am Klaus, the great and powerful hybrid' look. "Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy. I was wondering if you could do me a favor?"

Klaus's (admittedly poor) attempt at geniality didn't do much towards comforting Jeremy, though Klaus was mildly impressed at the way the ashen-faced boy refused to back away.

"A favor?" Jeremy's tone was somewhat incredulous, with a healthy dose of suspicion laced there as well. "A _favor? Me?_"

"I believe that's what I said, yes," he confirmed, wondering at the human need for mindless repetition.

Jeremy's brown eyes, so similar to Elena's, narrowed. "You tried to kill me once."

Klaus nodded, nonchalantly acknowledging his words as a fair point. "True. But I'm not here to kill you now, if that's what you're worried about. Peaceful coexistence and all that with your sister and her merry men." His mother and Elijah could really be such kill-joys when they set their mind to it. Terrorizing the Mystic Falls lackwits had been one of his few pleasures in life.

"So…" The boy hesitated, nervous gaze flicking to the edge of the court, wondering if escape were possible. "What exactly do you need from me then?"

"Only an insignificant query, no need to be overly anxious mate," Klaus drawled out amusedly, as though he could scent the fear rolling off of Jeremy in waves. "I merely wish to know if your beloved big sister has a secret ardor for my brother."

The basketball, formerly in Jeremy's hands, dropped with a _thud_ onto the court and went bouncing vigorously away—quite a contrast to the slack-mouthed and wide-eyed boy rather wishing that a deliverance of death had been Klaus's intention of seeking him out.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled finally, shaking his head to dispel the daze of _I-did-not-just-hear-that_. "Who did you say…?"

"Ah, you're confused about which brother I was referring to?" Klaus queried, although whether his obliviousness was purposeful or earnest was anyone's guess. "Elijah, obviously. No girl in her right, sane mind would settle for Kol, and Finn has about as much personality as that post over there, and I, despite what certain unnamed sisters and blonde vampires seem to believe, would not romantically engage Elena under any circumstances. Ever. So there you have it, mate."

"…ardor?" Jeremy seemed capable of only bemused, one-word inquiries.

Klaus's impatience grew tangible, from the way his blue eyes narrowed to the arrhythmic tap of his foot on the ground. "Yes. Ardor. Or whatever teenage vernacular is used these days. A crush? The hots? A burning desire to tear off all of my dear brother's clothes—_and by god was that not a visual I need_. Is that explanatory enough for you?"

Jeremy shifted awkwardly, looking as though he'd very much like to be anywhere other than this time and place, holding this particular conversation with his mortal enemy.

A cold bead of sweat trickled down his neck, starkly different from the summer heat beaming upon human and hybrid. Acutely aware of the oddity of the question he had just been asked, and utterly confused as to the significance of it (was this another scheme of Klaus's to hurt his sister?), he fell back on his natural teenage defense strategy: complete and total indifference.

He offered a shrug. "How should I know?" he mumbled, soft brown eyes locking with the scrutinizing blue ones of Klaus.

Klaus pursed his lips, gaze boring into the apathetic teenager as though he could drill the answers out of him. "Well, you're her brother, aren't you Jer?"

Jeremy flinched at the sound of the familiar nickname his sister used falling from the lips of a psychopathic hybrid with delusions of grandeur. "Uh…yeah?"

He was given a pitying look. "Had to think about it there?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Klaus to _shut up_, but Jeremy quite enjoyed being able to draw breath—as he'd learned in the past, mouthing off to a vampire was slightly counterproductive to that endeavor. Instead, he settled for shooting an annoyed look at the blonde hybrid.

"I really don't know, okay? I mean, do _you_ share everything with _your_ sister?" Jeremy asked pointedly, and then sighed as Klaus quirked an eyebrow at the teen's petulant tone. "Look, so far my sister's been involved with your everyday football-playing highschooler, a perpetually seventeen-year-old vampire who has as many sporadic, blood-craving related mood swings as the universe does stars, and his older vampire brother who has some severe personality issues and crazy eyes. I've dated a drug addict-turned-vampire who attempted to eat me, an ancient vampire who only began dating me to use me for her evil schemes, my sister's best witch friend, and made out with ghosts. When it comes to romance, Elena and I have a firm 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in place."

After Jeremy's spiel on the history of Gilbert dating came to an end, the teenager and ancient vampire stared at each other in silence. Awkward silence.

Eventually Klaus broke it with a resigned, "So I guess that's a 'no' to my question then, is it?" He smiled eerily. "Guess I'll just have to look elsewhere, then, won't I?"

A sinking feeling suddenly blossomed in Jeremy's stomach, and he was almost afraid to ask. "Elsewhere?" A sudden image of corpses strewn about the streets of Mystic Falls and the town being razed to the ground by one peevish hybrid flickered to being inside his head.

Klaus was already walking off, idly scooping up the forgotten orange ball and tossing it swiftly backwards over his shoulder as he did so. Jeremy gaped as it sailed perfectly through the basketball hoop.

Damn show-off vampires.

* * *

Finn stared at Matt.

Matt stared at Finn.

The seconds ticked by, the clock sounding abnormally loud in the relative stillness of The Grill.

With a nervous clearing of his throat, Matt began hesitantly, "So, uh…" He paused, racking his memory for the vampire's name.

"Finn," the other supplied emotionlessly, large black eyes regarding him unblinkingly.

"Um, yeah. So you and uh—"

"Klaus."

"Yes, you and Klaus wanted me to ask, um—"

"The Doppelganger."

Matt frowned at the blasé vampire sitting in the booth across from him. "You wanted me to ask _Elena_ if she, uh, _likes_…"

"Elijah."

Matt's eye twitched as Finn innocently linked his hands together, meshing his long fingers into an interlocking pattern. "Yeah, could you _stop_ with the name thing please?"

Finn inclined his head. "My apologies."

They resumed wordlessly staring at one another.

A dog barked in the distance.

* * *

It was a teacher work day, and that was normally something Alaric equated with blissful peace and quiet, absent of the petty teenage worries and high school dramas that he was forced to deal with on a daily basis (and that was in addition to the vampire dramas and supernatural catastrophes he was forced to deal with on a biweekly basis).

Unfortunately for Alaric, he was about to be privy to the experience of having his peace rudely disrupted, courtesy of one who had made it his life's goal to create an art form out of it.

Alaric looked up blearily as a football uniform-clad Kol Mikaelson came bounding into the classroom, with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin on his deceptively boyish face.

"Hey, teacher!"

Alaric groaned, before letting his head thump back down onto the paper-strewn desk it had been resting on only seconds ago. While it wasn't generally the wisest course of action in the presence of an unstable Original, he felt it was justified for two reasons: 1) the cease-fire treaty between Elena and Klaus, specifying that the Originals would be allowed residency in Mystic Falls with no further attempts on their lives, so long as people stopped not-so-mysteriously disappearing (aka, murdered), with a particular emphasis on Elena's loved ones, and 2) the brew of herbs that Bonnie regularly concocted to keep his violent alter ego at bay were utterly revolting and had the adverse habit of going straight to his head, causing an innumerable amount of migraines.

"Why," his voice came out muffled, "Are you here?"

"Needed to talk to you, I suppose. Also, there was football practice today." Kol shook his head, smirking. "Really, the delight you humans get from kicking around a ball! It's just too amusing to watch! It's also rather entertaining to think that if I so chose, I could use any of those muscle-headed blokes' skulls for a football instead…and I really might if one more of them tries to ram into me—"

"No," Alaric lifted his head again ever so gently, wincing as the movement initiated a round of resonating pain. "I mean why the hell are you even _here?"_

Kol regarded him innocently. "Are you trying to have an existential discussion with me?" A mischievous look flickered across his visage. "Or did your parents never give you The Talk?"

"I meant high school!" Alaric snapped out impatiently, before immediately placing a massaging hand on his forehead. Whether it was the vampire or Bonnie's magical brew that was the cause of this particular headache was a contender for a serious debate.

But the question was a valid one nevertheless—to the mystification of all involved, one Kol Michaelson had enrolled alongside his blonde sister in the local high school soon after the coven of Originals had decided to stay. Having to see the smarmy face of one of his sworn foes staring out at him each day for an hour, looking for all the world as though he _hadn't_ lived through each section of history discussed, was enough to drive the self-proclaimed vampire slayer's already alarming level of blood pressure a notch or two higher.

This was also irritating, because Jeremy and Elena had taken one look at the damn blood pressure reading and abruptly started feeding him a diet that consisted of nothing more than leafy green rabbit food, saying with suspiciously earnest, identically smiling faces that they didn't want him to keel over from a heart attack instead of dying in an exciting battle with a vampire.

"Oh." Kol appeared to pause and give serious thought to the matter, tapping his fingers speculatively against his chin. "I was bored?"

It took all of Alaric's not inconsiderable reserve of patience to refrain from snatching up the freshly sharpened #2 pencil resting innocently beside his elbow and sending it flying towards the Original's heart, Elena-style. Because a partly-dead Kol equaled a pissed off Klaus, and a pissed off Klaus equaled the treaty broken. And the treaty broken equaled an hour-long angry tirade by an extremely irked Elena.

And could that girl lecture something fierce. It was like having your mother scold you—going on and on until you just wanted to hang your head in utter shame.

So really, it was in the best interests possible (meaning, the preservation of his sanity), that he not follow his instincts and use Kol as an impromptu pencil holder.

"But seriously, teach," Kol drawled with a self-satisfied grin as Alaric twitched almost convulsively at the mocking title. "I've got a problem. And aren't students supposed to go to their teachers when they've got problems?"

Alaric eyed him furtively as he rifled through his desk drawer for a most elusive bottle of painkillers that he was in dire need of right about now. He needed happy anti-pain pills, _now_. "I wouldn't know where to begin with _your_ laundry list of problems, Kol."

A faux pout formed on Kol's lips. "That's hardly kind, Mr. Saltzman."

"Get off my desk," he ordered flatly, eyeing the corner that Kol had happily taken upon himself to perch on. "And I don't do kind. Particularly not to vampires."

"You don't treat those boorish Salvatore commoners nearly as harsh," Kol countered back without missing a beat. He rested his head idly against the palm of his hand, his dark eyes mocking. "Or is it different for vampires your precious student is screwing?"

Before Alaric's eyes could finally pop out of his head due to the anger rushing through his veins and his short temper skyrocketing, Kol continued on blithely, "And speaking of Elena Gilbert, that brings me back to my original problem! It's all a mess of vampires and love and romance and such crap, which frankly I could care less about, but what can you do, right?"

"I—"

"I mean really, it's utterly baffling to me as to why all of these vampires trail after that girl like lost puppies—god, I hate puppies—and it's certainly never a problem _I _thought I'd have to deal with. Believe you me, teach, I've been _forced_ at knifepoint by Bekah to read _Twilight_, and I'll tell you now that 'blood singing' crap is ridiculous. It all tastes the freaking same! Unless you're in love. I think love puts a nauseating coating of glittery happiness on _everything._"

"Y-you're telling me," Alaric choked out when Kol finally paused for breath, eyeing the would-be-teenager incredulously. "That you _like_ Elena?" Oh dear god, he was going to need more than headache medication to get through this day—he was going to damn well require someone to club him over the head with the thick _World through the Ages _textbook on his desk, and pray that he woke up when the universe regained some semblance of normality.

Allowing his murderous alter ago to take over be damned, unconsciousness was preferable to _this_.

Disgust immediately overtook Kol's handsome features, and for an instant he tottered precariously as he nearly toppled off the desk in surprise. "_Her_? Hah. Hardly." Exasperation was written on his face as his eyes narrowed at Alaric. "Weren't you _listening_ at all?"

"I was trying not to," Alaric grumbled, only feeling the slightest sense of relief that he wasn't going to have to beat back an amorous Original vampire from his student and younger-sister-figure. That girl had more than enough on her already-overburdened plate, what with college looming on the horizon, a younger brother to monitor, and the tentative peace she had managed to forge with Klaus still hanging on only by a few precarious threads.

Huffing, Kol folded his arms and jutted out his hip in the typical teenager pose of self-righteous annoyance. "Well, if you'd been paying attention at all, you would know that I was asking if Elena's in love with Elijah!" He shook his head disparagingly. "Honestly, you humans…so _dense_."

A mystified Kol watched as Alaric stared expressionlessly at him for the span of a human's fluttering heartbeat, closed his eyes, and slammed his head down onto desk with a thoroughly painful-sounding _thunk_.

* * *

Elena sighed happily to herself as she sipped at her coffee, eyes absentmindedly scanning the college brochures she'd actually remembered to bring along with her. She'd had a wearying, yet ultimately fulfilling, day of touring campuses and their respective facilities, attempting to steer her once careening-out-of-control life back onto a course that had some semblance of normality.

Naturally, with graduation fast approaching in June, university was most certainly a part of that course.

And now that she knew for certain that Klaus and his extended family were _not_ going to embark on an extended killing spree anytime soon (partly due to the formal contract she and Klaus had been able to settle between them, and partly due to the comforting fact that Elijah was around to reign in his family whenever they became too evilly rambunctious), Elena had even felt comfortable enough not settling for Mystic Falls Community College, but instead applying for a few institutions two or three hours away, ones that had more promising English programs.

Strangely enough, she remembered with a slight smile, Elijah had been the one to advise her of this.

With Alaric being overwhelmed with a new relationship and a long-put aside career that he was trying to rebuild, Bonnie and Caroline being just as preoccupied as her in their decisions of shaping their respective futures, and Damon and Stefan knowing very little about modern day universities (she wasn't even sure that Damon had _ever_ gone to college, for as a human he had run off to war, and as a vampire he had been too busy seeking the thrills such a lifestyle brought. And Stefan…she supposed that his numerous years spent as a Ripper and a recovering blood-aholic had stinted any possible plans of extended education)…well, she had desperately sought someone to turn to for aid.

And who else more suitable than a thousand year old vampire who had not only been present at the times of the birth of the university in America, but had, given his passion for the new and undiscovered, dedicated much of his time to attendance of some of the most renowned schools both in the States and Europe?

Elena supposed she hadn't really been thinking clearly when first turning up on Elijah's doorstep at six o'clock in the morning, clutching an array of applications, brochures, and letters in her arms with a desperate, wide-eyed look on her face. But Elijah had merely quirked an amused eyebrow, his lips tilting upwards as she had explained to him in a garbled tumble of words and frantic hand gestures exactly why she so needed his expertise.

He had simply cut off her babbling by gently pulling her inside, extracting the pamphlets she had had a death grip on from her hands, and poured her a cup of warm mint tea while ordering her to _calm down_.

And that had marked the start of the next two months, in which the sight of Elijah and Elena, heads bent together in concentration at all hours of the night and soft conversation and hints of laughter surrounding them, became quite a commonplace one in the Originals' household.

In a strangely touching display of how well he understood her, Elijah had helped her select colleges that were thankfully close enough to home should she be homesick or should Jeremy need her, but far enough to grant her some much desired breathing space (mainly from two unnamed brothers/guard dogs that she was beginning to realize had consumed her life and time in an almost unhealthy manner…needless to say, Stefan and Damon would _not _be accompanying her to wherever she so chose to go).

Elena was moving on, and she was undeniably looking forwards to the future.

There were only a few loose ends in Mystic Falls that needed tying, she thought distantly. Some stories needed closure, and some words needed to be said…though whether or not she would ever have the courage to say them was an entirely different matter.

Casting an vague glance at the clock on the wall of the little sandwich shop, she was surprised to note it was nearly six p.m. Though loathe to depart from the strangely _normal_ day she'd been enjoying thus far, she didn't want to set out for Mystic Falls too late and risk sending Jeremy into a worried frenzy.

Fishing her phone from her pocket as she drained the last dregs of her coffee, Elena jumped when, the moment she switched it back on, the air was rent with a ceaseless flow of beeps alerting her to a number of missed calls and texts.

Her mug hit the table with a _crack_, her olive-toned face drastically paling as she scrambled to scroll through the notifications and messages littering the screen. Each alert only served to spur her on to visualize some potentially ghastly situation that might have befallen the trouble-friendly town, effectively shattering any semblance of calm she'd held only moments previously.

Texts and calls from Jeremy, about ten from Bonnie, _thirty_ from Caroline (typical), a few from Alaric and Matt…oh god, had some supernatural disaster struck yet again?

Elena felt sick, as though someone had ruthlessly landed a fist square in the center of her stomach. How could she have been so selfish, so _stupid_, turning her phone off so as to explore the colleges uninterrupted, when her friends might have needed her? Her brother might have needed her?

She hastily opened one of Bonnie's messages, figuring she'd receive the most coherent picture of the situation from her ever-practical friend.

A second after reading it, Elena's phone joined the forgotten coffee mug on the table with a clatter. Her head whirled, attempting to comprehend what she had just read.

Elena's eyes strayed back to the softly glowing screen, the bold text staring back at her, causing her heart rate to speed up and resonate loudly in her chest.

Because…it was another supernatural predicament befalling her life for the umpteenth time.

It just wasn't one she'd been expecting.

* * *

**There you have it. Chapter two. A little (ok...a LOT) late, but better than never, right? This chapter was sort of hard to get written because I was feeling emotional about my darling Kol's death, to which I can only respond with a quivering "WHYYYYYYY GOD WHYYYYY?"**

**Thanks to everyone who favorited/followed/left a beautiful review/messaged me to get my lazy butt in order and write this chapter :) Thanks particularly to all the girls at the Original Forums who really help me get my Elejah muse going. **

**I'd love to know what everyone thinks, so drop a review, whether it's saying "LOL THIS SUX" or "UPDATE PLEASE". I'll settle for either!**


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